Perhaps their hatred of the dog would not have driven them to such extreme measures, even although she had bitten Annie Anderson, had her master been a favourite, or even generally respected.

But Alec knew well enough that the townsfolk were not likely to sympathize with Bruce on the ill-treatment of his cur.
When the dinner and the blazing fire had filled him so full of comfort that he was once more ready to encounter the cold, Alec could stay in the house no longer.
"Where are you going, Alec ?" said his mother.
"Into the garden, mamma." "What can you want in the garden--full of snow ?" "It's just the snow I want, mamma.

It won't keep." And, in another moment, he was under the clear blue night-heaven, with the keen frosty air blowing on his warm cheek, busy with a wheelbarrow and a spade, slicing and shovelling in the snow.

He was building a hut of it, after the fashion of the Esquimaux hut, with a very thick circular wall, which began to lean towards its own centre as soon as it began to rise.

This hut he had pitched at the foot of a flag-staff on the green--_lawn_ would be too grand a word for the hundred square feet in front of his mother's house, though the grass which lay beneath the snowy carpet was very green and lovely grass, smooth enough for any lawn.